The Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus) is one of the world's largest flying birds, measuring some 140–175 cm with a wingspan of an impressive 270–320 cm; an adult can weigh up to ten kilograms. The plumage is white with a faint pink or rosy flush most visible during the breeding season, while the wingtips and trailing edges are black, a contrast that stands out clearly in flight. Its most striking feature is the enormous, flattened bill with a large, expandable pouch beneath it, adapted for scooping up fish. The legs are short and the bill yellowish, and in flight the heavy neck is held drawn in, S-shaped, much as in herons, with the bird alternating powerful wingbeats and long glides.
The species is mostly silent away from breeding colonies and rarely heard in flight; at colonies it can give deep, rasping grunts and growling calls, mainly between adults and around the nests. It breeds in large colonies at shallow lakes and extensive wetlands across south-eastern Europe, Africa and western Asia, and is classed as globally Least Concern. In Sweden it is a great rarity, with only occasional records, mostly in spring and summer, and because the species is also kept in captivity it can be very difficult to establish whether an individual bird is a genuine wild vagrant or an escapee, though wild birds are known to wander far north in warm summers. It feeds almost entirely on fish, often hunting cooperatively in groups that swim in formation to drive shoals into shallow water before plunging their heads in together to scoop up prey in the huge pouch, which acts like a net as the water drains away before the fish is swallowed.
Read about this species in Swedish →